Jim Linderman blog about surface, wear, form and authenticity in self-taught art, outsider art, antique american folk art, antiques and photography. Dull tool and dim bulb were the only swear words my father ever used. Items from the Jim Linderman collection of vernacular photography, folk art, ephemera and curiosities. (Note: if anyone believes an image contained violates their rights or insults their intelligence, simply point it out and I will remove)

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Unsung Heroes of Photography runs on Dull Tool Dim Bulb and on Vintage Sleaze on occasion. See others in the series HERE

Frank J. Haynes was a master photographer, but then he had a good gig for a man with a camera...official photographer of Yellowstone National Park. Mr. Haynes was born in Michigan in 1857.

The Antler House (or House of Antlers) was one of the rare "unnatural" beautiful parts of the park. In a somewhat misguided attempt to attract visitors, it was erected by man pretty much to appeal to the common Joe...after all, antlers fall off, but they do not fall off into a house shaped pile. It was constructed by Ranger Woodring in 1928, I suspect simply so it could be turned into a tinted postcard to entice visitors.

With the park firmly established on travel agendas after every home had an automobile, the antler house was taken apart. Park officials feared it would encourage others to harvest antlers from the wild, and its phony purpose had been fulfilled.

There is another photo of the Antler house by Mr. Haynes and an astounding group 60 of the 1500 photographs he took (along with other members of his family), in the park over the period of decades appears HERE on the Montana State University Flickr page.

Mr Haynes went by the name "Professor" or "F. Jay" Read more about the Professor HERE

I can find virtually no artists who specialize or specialized in painting under the influence of hypnosis. I wonder why? Every manner of altered state, disability or Psychotropic drug known has been used to influence artists...as has the old stand by booze, and I do not just mean a few snifters at the opening. Some painters were drunk longer than they painted. From what little I know about hypnosis, you would think it could lead to increased concentration, wacky influences, a driven disciplined approach, who knows...so why aren't there more artists giving it a try?

Could it be that painting under hypnosis sucks?

Alter your mind and who knows what might result? In this case, what resulted is a mundane portrait with nothing trippy at all...do you suppose the artist barked like a dog or took his clothes off while under suggestion? "You are feeling VERY, VERY realistic, literal and perfectly representational today" This portrait is so straight, it could go right over the mantle in the boardroom (which it probably did,) In fact, it is so boring I would pass it by at the Salvation Army.

Twice the fun in every drink you pour! Why? The amazing Key Club (a division of Bear Sales) has figured out a way to serve your guests a fully dressed show girl on the outside, but when they peer through the "keyhole" glass, they see her "hidden talents" through the swill!

Now it wasn't enough for the Bear company to shill the glasses...they also ran a punch card scam! A gambit as old as time, yet as contemporary as Bad Bernie Madoff! Punch one, pay one cent. The next "contestant" punches two, he pays two cents. Each scam nets the card holder a minor fortune AND his own complete set of show girl glasses, yet only one "winner" gets the prize...a lousy set of see-through drinking glasses.

I wrote about "punchboards" before. This is the first time I have seen the scam illustrated in a flyer. Somebody had a "Hidden Talent" all right...a talent for scamming rubes with the promise of ice cubes. One thing these show girls are showing is how easy it is touse the promise of a curvy dame to line your pockets. Click to Engorge...every "secret" is revealed!

Now most of these scams had been busted and found out by the 1950s, but guess who persisted in shilling them right into the 1960s according to Punchboard.com? One Jack Ruby. You might have heard of him.

Dad may be good at "knockin' them back" but he isn't going to stand this one up. Can it be done? Yes, and you will often see signs at the booth reading "one win per person per season" to keep that BMX mini-bike hanging on the wall in back. But will YOU do it? Nope. Dad has the wrong thing going here, and I don't just mean his white socks. The pole should be as vertical as possible, not horizontal, and you must "push" the bottle up, not pull it. Complicated? Yes. It will take you a solid afternoon to work it out at home. How many of those who come upon it have done their homework? None. Especially not Dad.

Nothing to add here except a list of the current "How to make a Cake" shows on cableso I will receive hits from anyone who looks up the show names. READY?Ace of Cakes, Wedding Cake Wars, Amazing Wedding Cakes, Cake Boss, and Ultimate Cake Off. Now who says we don't make anything in America anymore?

Group of vernacular snapshot photographs of children, birthdays and cakes Collection Jim Linderman

Thank you to all who came to the opening of Take Me to the Water at the International Center of Photography in New York City this week! It was a pleasure to see so many old friends and to make so many new ones. The exhibit was curated with great skill by Erin Barnett, Assistant Curator of Collections and is presented beautifully! Very much appreciated, and I hope ALL have the opportunity to see the exhibit, which will run from January 2011 to May 2011. I have been told additional images which were donated, including many larger images are available on the ICP website.

Also showing currently at the ICP are three astounding exhibitions! Wang Quingsong's "When Worlds Collide" "The Mexican Suitcase" (rediscovered negatives of Capa, Chim and Taro) AND of particular interest to followers of African-American culture, history and photography, a striking show of vintage photographs created by Alonzo Jordan from Jasper Texas, all three shows not to miss. In my humble opinion, any one of these exceptional shows are worth traveling for, to have all four up at the same time in the same institution is truly remarkable. More information on all these shows is available at the INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY WEBSITE

I'm a bit tied up, so the post today is a slight rehash, but never, I promise, have I posted a picture of a prone piker pushing a peanut across the country with his nose. Note how Nehi butted in with their sign carrying flivver. The point here is that press photographs were always cropped, painted, embellished and fixed...and we thought a picture couldn't lie?

FAR from it.

I guess you don't always see a man with a Bee Beard either...but some drone in the photo department thought he could improve on it with a black halo.

Imagine my surprise when I learned this 90 foot cement tribute to an imaginary mish-mosh of Native American Tribes not only still stands, but it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places! (Not the more exclusive register of Historic LANDMARKS, but still) I thought I had just bought yet another photograph of a long forgotten goofy thing. Goofy it may be, but it was carefully restored and repainted by the Kansas Grassroots Art Association. That it is in Oklahoma seems not to have mattered to the Kansans. It is claimed to be "The World's Largest Concrete Totem Pole" (um...yeah, duh) but maker Ed Galloway cheated...he built it on a giant five foot tall turtle barely seen in the photo.

This Press Photo dates to 1947, just about near the time Ed claimed it was finished. It was even given an unusual amount of respect at the time from the press...note the text on the reverse says nothing about Ed's mental state, though if you look really close you CAN see they titled the caption "Monumental Joke." They also call it "grotesque" and infer it was made to trick future paleontologists. However, as Ed is passed away now, I can question his sanity! What crazy Okie would build a giant cement totem pole?

Whether Ed's mind was fit as a fiddle is questionable, but he made fiddles too...400 of them, though many were stolen out of the Fiddle house he also built next to the totem to hold them a few years after he passed away.

Ed's pole is estimated to weigh 134 tons. The big goobers on the side here also still remain. Ed mixed up his tribes a bit, putting some traditional Northwestern motifs down in the Sooner State too. In fact, the Indians Ed is depicting in his gravel and stone monolith are in a way responsible for the State's nickname, as after having driven them all further west (or 6 feet underground for good) the territory was opened up for all (All Non-native that is) in a giant landrush...and the cheaters who snuck in early received the more charming name of Sooners.

Ed Galloway was born 20 years before Oklahoma became a state, and started building his thing thirty years after.

In 1858 the John Manufacturing Company was founded. Their main product was fire-resistant asbestos roofing material. (At the time, virtually nothing was worse than fire...entire towns could burn to the ground while waiting for the horses to get hooked up and gallop to your block with a tank of water big enough to put out a campfire) Well...as we now know Asbestos was a mixed blessing. So mixed the lawsuit commercials pepper late night TV like flutters of fibers falling from a roof being torn down even today.

But the point of this post is not asbestiosis, not even the pulmonary fibrosis which killed the founder H.W. Johns HIMSELF some forty years after founding the company. This post is actually about a fire of a different sort...a fire of love which burns deep in the chest of a billionaire's rotten son...One Tommy Manville, who became "the asbestos heir" after his father merged his Manville company with the Johns company to become Johns-Manville By 1925 they were producing over 200 asbestos products. They were listed on the Fortune 500. But at the very same time, their executives were learning what their products did...and they paid some quiet lawsuits during the 1930s. But the cases kept coming and eventually Johns Manville was little more than a trust set up to pay off claims of the dead and dying.But the real hero (no...let's make that the real boob) of this tale is not the founder, not the buyer, not the victims, not the lawyers...it is the goofus son. Thomas Franklyn Manville Jr.

What great invention of commerce, or political office, or educational institution did he found? Umm..well...I can't find any. But he DID MARRY THIRTEEN WIVES (!) and not a clunker among them!Was young Tommy groomed to take over the company lethal business? Nah..after being thrown out of EIGHT public schools for misbehaving, he decidededjucatin' wasn't for him. He married his first wife at 17. Florence Huber was a Ziegfield Follies showgirl. Natch. Tommy had to lie about his age, and when Daddy found out he was outraged...Tommy and Florence had to cross the river into New Jersey and marry again using his real age. The marriage, surprisingly, lasted 7 years. When it ended, Daddy gave Flo $16,000 as a settlement. Tommy as now free for number 2, his father's personal secretary, Lois McCoin! Not surprisingly, this shocked his father into a heart attack and within months, Tommy had a two million dollar trust fund and 25,000 shares of stock.

New found wealth apparently gave Tommy notions of new wedded bliss, as he paid off wife number two with a guaranteed 20 grand a year for life.For wife number three, Tommy went shopping at the Follies again. Another bombshell named Avonne...that one lasted 30 days. With a Mexican divorce and over $100,000 in gifts, the pretty bride left with a pretty penny. Wife number 4 was a spicy blond who lasted four years of fighting...she hit the road with twice the purse...$200,000.

Number 5 was a 22 year old showgirl Tommy met while judging a beauty contest. That marriage lasted 17 days. They were divorced the day Pearl Harbor was bombed. Prescient, as bombshell number 6 was waiting in the wings. Billie Boze.Billie was 20 and lasted about as long as you would expect. Two months and Tommy gave her the asbestos-sole boot. No payoff was reported, but I suspect she left the house with more than white fibers in her clothes.

Sunny was next. Now Sunny Ainsworth had already been married. FOUR TIMES! And she had yet to reach her 20s. Sunny was a sunny 19. Her age wasn't the only record she would hold...as Sunny's marriage would last...are you ready? Seven Hours. Wife number seven lasted seven hours. When I was a sexy, single, and most importantly straight bachelor in Manhattan, a good number of my DATES lasted longer than seven hours. A settlement? Yes.

Number eight was a reporter, one Georgina Campbell. They had a few good battles and made up several times, but when the reporter sniffed out a story taking place in Tommy's bedroom with his secretary, there was a little problem. Georgina was in it for the long haul though, and it was an automobile accident which took here out of the picture.

Mere weeks later, number nine was in place. Anita Frances Roddy-Eden. It lasted ten days and she left the house with $100,000. Number 10 was...jeez, let's see...A SHOWGIRL! 26 year old Pat Gaston. A 6 month marriage.

Now, it gets complicated...as Wiki says, "the record is confused" since two of ten listed here were married to Tommy Twice. So that makes TWELVE marriages. And who was lucky number 13? 20 year old Christina Erdlen. That one appears to have lasted until Tommy croaked in 1967, but I am not quite sure. Much to my chagrin, I have not been able to find pictures of the last two.

"Perpetually ahead of the collecting curve...a one man Taschen. An authentically curious individual...diligently archiving the forgotten curiosities of American History"

Emma Higgins in Art Hack May 2012

"Jim Linderman likes Art, Antiques and Photography and his collection of Vernacular Photography, Folk Art, Ephemera and Curiosities is a wonderful place..."LifeElsewhere with Norman B. 2014

"...collected over the years by Jim Linderman, a character who seems the perfect subject for a Harvey Pekar comic. Linderman treats collecting like a calling, and his finds have a resulting air of authority, stunning in their capture of bygone picturesque moments."Derek Taylor Dusted

"The pictures, discarded artifacts of ecstatic Americana, come from the stash of Jim Linderman, who in his introduction recalls advice he’s plainly taken to heart: “Collect the heck” out of whatever you find interesting."Drew Jubera Paste Magazine

"His interest in art is rivaled only by his interest in music, and one expression informs the other. He pursues objects with thoroughness and an innate sense of curiosity..."Tanya Heinrich Folk Art Magazine

"Linderman acknowledges the obscure at the same time that he elevates it.... His collections tell vast stories in sotto voce, allowing curios and objects shadowed by mainstream culture and ideology to converse and be heard. What we hear is an enormous American sub-culture speaking in forbidden, marginalized languages: stuff discovered boxed in the attic out of embarrassment or zealotry, smutty ash trays crowing next to religious pamphlets, each claiming a part of the complex, sometimes contradictory, always conflicted American imagination, a chaos of memories that will one day vanish."Joe Bonomo Author of Conversations With Greil Marcus, Jerry Lewis Lost and Found and No Such Thing As Was

"Documenting--one clipping at a time--the scrapbook of a leg and garter aficionado that was dumpster-dived in Virginia in the 60s" "...an outstanding image-archaeologist who has compiled a shelf-ful of worthy and unique photographic histories."William Smith Hang Fire Books

"Linderman has a knack for discovering untold stories and introducing them to a wider audience"Joey Lin Anonymous Works

"Jim Linderman...makes us all look a little puny"Could it be Madness-this?

"...there's something beyond the endless photos and postcards and weird propaganda from another time that he lovingly documents - I think it's the collection as a whole, the portrait of a person fascinated with culture and communication. I have met people like this before, and in reading Dull Tool Dim Bulb I feel I have been lucky enough to meet one more. This site is a goldmine in terms of links..."The Hyggelic Life October 2009

"Linderman is always on the lookout for the new and exciting"Chuck and Jan Rosenak Contemporary American Folk Art

"...an amazing collection..."Revel in New York October 2009

"Jim Linderman has a nice little colllection of interesting books and blogs...But every so often he just loses it."American Digest March 2010

"FOR MOST OF HIS LIFE, COLLECTOR JIM LINDERMAN has searched high and low for authentic things--unique and special objects that define the artistic culture of the American experience. From folk art to popular culture, from pulp fiction to Delta Blues-- Jim is a walking authority on so many things American they are too numerous to mention. One thing is certain-- his collecting interests are for things that have fallen through the cracks, those things lost and forgotten--the box of material under the table at the flea market booth. If it wasn't for dedicated collectors like Jim Linderman-- so many important objects about our culture would have surely been lost to time and indifference."

"Jim Linderman maintains a most interesting blog about the most amazing things from his collection—a site he calls “Dull Tool Dim Bulb,” the only curse words his father ever uttered. I love it, and read it everyday.""...an excellent writer and I devour your blog daily. I am impressed at your deep knowledge of things within your niche..."John Foster Accidental Mysteries

"I am grateful to Jim Linderman for first alerting me to the existence of the 1930s Spiritualist hymn "Jesus is My Air-o-plane."William Fagaly New Orleans Museum of Art, Author Tools of her Ministry: The art of Sister Gertrude Morgan

"Linderman describes a long gone world...(he) claims not to be a writer but he is most certainly an excellent researcher..."BOOKSTEVE

"Jim Linderman, King of the Internet Ephemeral Arts"Spaniel Rage

"Jim is a fantastic historian...show him some love"Astrid Daley Fringe Pop / Sin-A-Rama

"Almost an experimental narrative"Idiopath

"He came to us with hundreds of jaw-dropping baptism photos that he'd been collecting for 25 years," Ledbetter explains. "By the time he found us, he'd already done half a lifetime's works, and he trusted us to handle it properly." Lance Ledbetter in Creative Loafing 10/13/11

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Although most of the images here are original photography and objects owned by the author and in the author's personal collection, we cannot absolutely guarantee the exact copyright status of the items or offer written assurance that every or any aspect of this work is completely cleared for all usages. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

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